Wednesday afternoon, PBH sent the following notice to all of its board members:

TO: PBH Board of Trustees

Many of you have expressed concern about a recent alliance that was announced between PBH and Imagination Farms. I appreciate those of you who contacted PBH directly to express your concern. I’d like to frame the issue for you and update you on what we’re doing about it.

Imagination Farms, through a brainstorming session we had with them in January, agreed to develop — at their expense — some fun, educational materials for children on our website using Disney characters, with PBH involvement and approval. At no time was it considered that Imagination Farms would show their products or mention their Disney Garden brand on the PBH website. We saw this as an opportunity to provide excitement (value) to moms and her children and help drive traffic to the new Fruits & Veggies — More Matters web site. That is the most immediate tangible piece from our initial discussions with Imagination Farms, but there was potential for more, thus my approval of the words “strategic alliance” in their press release.

Last week some of you raised the concern that any use of the Disney characters by PBH provided some trustees with a competitive advantage, at the expense of other trustees who are not themselves aligned with Disney. I confess that I was initially surprised by this reaction, although now I certainly understand it.

My concern at this point is the development of parameters to guide us with collaborations, alliances, or partnerships in the future. If there were issues with Imagination Farms, then some of our past activities should have also been called into question. It would be inefficient to have you approve everything that we do; that is why we have a Board Positions, Policies & Procedures Manual and an executive committee to act in place of the board when the board is not in session. This particular case brought to our attention the need for more extensive parameters — beyond what has already been requested by our health partners — in PBH collaborations.

So, yesterday your PBH executive committee had a very lengthy conference call about this issue, with extensive dialog both before and after the call. They’ve taken this very seriously and are working on a policy that will provide guidance in such situations in the future; guidance that will prevent an unfair competitive advantage to some at the expense of others, but will still allow for collaborations that will benefit our collective effort to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

Suffice it to say that we will not be placing Disney characters on our website. I think Imagination Farms deserves credit for trying to do more to support our cause of increasing consumption. In fact, in further conversations with Imagination Farms this week, they have expressed their continued commitment to support in-kind PBH web development within the final policy parameters that are set forth, despite the dialog of the past week. They share our commitment to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. They happened to be the “lightening rod” example that brought to light some parameters that needed more extensive discussion.

The PBH executive committee is planning a follow-up phone call to discuss this early next week, after which I’ll update you again. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions and I welcome your continued comments.

Finally, I remain convinced that our new Fruits & Veggies — More Matters initiative will have a lasting impact on consumers. As many of you heard at our recent board meeting, Moms need help in translating their positive attitudes and intentions about fruits and vegetables into action. With your help, we can make that happen!

Elizabeth is smart to praise Imagination Farms because anyone who offers to support the foundation should be praised. She also is smart to not put the Disney characters on the web site because it would alienate the many foundation supporters who compete against product festooned with the same characters.

On the substance of the issue, this was a more difficult issue than typical because although Disney characters are used on fresh produce, the characters have independent identities that are part of the culture and pre-date the founding of Imagination Farms.

In other words, had McDonald’s proposed to put Ronald McDonald on the PBH web site, it would instantly have rung some bells that this would alienate other restaurant chains.

In this case, Elizabeth and her staff were looking to use the Mickey of Steamboat Willie to promote the cause. Such a tiny proportion of Disney character exposure is on fresh produce that PBH staff focused more on the benefits of using the icon than the implications of having it also on some produce items. They were viewing things as marketers, not as produce people.

Part of the problem was semantics. There was really no need to use terms such as “strategic alliance” in discussing what, at this point, was a simple deal of getting in-kind services to develop the web site.

It is also important for an institution such as PBH to remain open to getting help from many sources. Another non-profit group produced a video a few years back called “Kids for Character.” It used a whole group of characters from different companies, everyone from Barney to Babar, to promote the cause of building character in every child. The junior Pundits, Primo and Segundo, aka William, age 5 and Matthew, age 3, can sing every song and tell you all about the six pillars of character from memory.

There are dozens of characters in the video but, notably, Disney refused to get involved. Still, if PBH established a policy that it would like to use all characters and was open to arrangements on a non-exclusive basis, it is not obvious that the industry would object to the use of Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob SquarePants and the Sesame Street folks, etc., on the web site or elsewhere.

The simplest policy would just be to say that if a character is used to sell a brand of produce, it can’t be used with PBH.

Yet we may need to reflect. Suppose The Walt Disney Company wanted to rededicate The Land Pavilion at EPCOT to increasing produce consumption in partnership with PBH? Suppose The Walt Disney Company wanted to put a short feature in front of its newest animated movie urging children to eat more fruits and vegetables? Should we say no because Mickey Mouse in a farmer’s uniform is part of the signage at Epcot or a character in the short film?

These are complicated issues. Clearly, many board members just didn’t see an in-kind offer to help with a website as sufficient inducement to risk alienating longtime supporters of PBH who compete with Imagination Farms.

Our sense is that this is a difficult issue to deal with through a policy decision. That a firm “No. Not now, Not Ever” might foreclose opportunities undesirably.

We’ve heard from members of both the board and executive committee who both say that the issue of a ‘strategic alliance’ with Imagination Farms was not brought before either body. If true, it means that the decision was made by staff. The policy change might be that any proposed alliances should be brought before the Executive Committee with their making a decision whether referral to the full Board is required.

It is also important that PBH maintain a certain openness to receive help from others. So if Disney wants to contribute, then the door has to be kept open for contributions from Universal, Warner Brothers, Nickelodeon, etc. Talk of strategic alliances implies that doors are being shut to others.

We’ve given extensive coverage to Tesco’s decision to open stores in America.

Of course the opening of a major retailer in the U.S. is a rare event and has set off a desperate drive by suppliers to find a way in as a supplier.

Of course it is not really a fair fight. Some major suppliers are being brought over from the United Kingdom while still others already have an “in” because they are “family,” having been supplying Tesco in the U.K. for many years.

Now, an American venture has been awarded one of Tesco’s most prestigious awards:

During Tesco’s annual cherry review meeting, Orchard View Farms was recognized for their “Overall Commitment to Tesco business”. Grant J. Hunt Company is the exclusive sales and marketing company for Orchard View Farms.

The Tesco Value Awards are given to companies who recognize and help support Tesco’s core values, including:

— No one tries harder for customers — Understand customers better than anyone — Be energetic, be innovative and be first for customers — Look after our people so they can look after our customers

Orchard View Farms, The Dalles, Oregon, has been recognized nationally and internationally for their innovations as orchardists and as a packer/shipper. They use ozonated water vs. the industry standard of chlorine and have found the use of ozone has been of great value to help conserve water. A side benefit is ozonated water also means greener stems.

Recently, Orchard View Farms, Inc, once again received the Food Alliance’s Certification Seal. As a Food Alliance certified producer, Orchard View Farms received this certification because they are working to leave the land healthy and productive for future generations. The Baileys, who own Orchard View Farms, and their workers were recognized for dedicating themselves to environmentally and socially responsible agricultural practices for cherries and pears.

This is a very prestigious award. Normally it is delivered before an audience of hundreds of Tesco’s top suppliers but cherries are such a special category they actually have a separate meeting just for cherries.

Tesco doesn’t publish lists of who has won it before but very few produce companies, in the U.K. or elsewhere, have ever won it before.

In fact this company claims it is the first produce supplier ever to win the award.

Grant M. Hunt, currently president of the Grant J. Hunt Company, is a former Chairman of the Produce Marketing Association. His father, Jim Hunt, was also Chairman of PMA. That this relatively small company should be a source of such industry leadership tells you something is really special there. Obviously Tesco thinks so as well.

The largest share of CO2 emissions is produced by the SUVs that the consumers drive to the supermarket to pick up their locally grown, fair trade, CO2 neutral, ethically responsible, guaranteed-no-child-labor-involved fresh produce, ideally packed in tons of non degradable plastic….

I am no scientist, but someone offered the following idea the other day: What if we were to put all the glass houses in Holland along the highways? A) They would be a great soundbarrier, and ) We could channel all CO2 emissions from cars into the hothouses, where the plants thrive on extracting CO2 out the air…

Second: when considering paying € 16.00 carbontax on your next airplane ride — for some scheme to offset “your” transatlantic CO2 emission — do some investigating and find that only (!) € 4.85 goes to planting new trees…

The bottom line: We need to bring hysteria and fear mongering out of the debate. Global warming is too serious an issue to not be able to have a constructive debate about it.

Every little bit helps, but let the consumer make his/her own decision based on sound facts, and not just based on some fancy marketing tools — who is really going green here in fresh produce?

Are we going to turn global warming into some fancy marketing gimmick or a competitive tool (just like food safety to some extent), or are we just going to go do something REAL and get it done without fuss?

And are we going to take our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for our children and grandchildren? Tackling global warming is more than a scheme or project: It will fundamentally change the way we work and live. It will be driven through massive amounts of local projects. It will be a TRUE grassroots success. It will be a composition of ALL kinds of alternative energy, including (!) fossil energy.

We spend hours and hours writing about this… because it opens up exciting new possibilities also for our industry. That’s what we need to look at!

— Marc De Naeyer
Managing Partner
TROFI
The Netherlands

Marc is referencing a study done for the government in the U.K. that found commercial transport — which typically involves large quantities traveling together, as in trailers, railcars or ships — is rather efficient in terms of CO2 emissions per pound of product. What is very inefficient is consumers running to the market and picking up a few items and driving home.

An obvious implication here is that if a consumer drives a half hour out of his way to go to a farmer’s market that sells exclusively locally grown produce, because he is “saving” highly efficient commercial transport miles and replacing them with highly inefficient consumer miles, he is as likely to do harm as good.

Global warming is an enormously complicated issue. Not every scientist believes it is happening, and even if it is happening, it is not 100% clear that mankind has much to do with it. We know there was an Ice Age, and it was followed by global warming without any help from our man-made carbon emissions.

Even if we knew it was happening and knew it was caused by man, it is not obvious that it is bad. It would certainly be bad for some people in some places but probably good for other people in other places. Finally, even if we know it is happening, know it is caused by man and know it is bad, we don’t know at this point if we can change it in any way. It might be too late.

To overlay this complexity with a simple-minded marketing message — don’t eat produce flown on a plane — is bizarre. It is an attempt by retailers to position themselves marketing-wise with total disregard to the actual issue at hand.

In this particular case, where much of the produce flown into British supermarkets is from impoverished African nations, it is, without reason, an elevation of one particular value — reducing carbon emissions — over every other value, such as helping poor people.

Our piece spoke to still another point — the CO2 numbers being bandied about are inaccurate and meaningless. We gave an example of a transport backhaul as contributing little to carbon emissions. Only highly complex studies on each individual item could tell us anything useful and, even then, unless you know what will happen in the future as a consequence of one’s actions, it doesn’t tell you much.

If a developing country sees its markets close in the U.K., maybe it will fly the product to a more distant market and increase carbon emissions. Or, maybe, people left in poverty by having their markets caught off will not be able to pay for centrally generated electricity and will burn animal dung and the local trees to cook with. So perhaps the environmental impact of this is worse than flying some produce to London.

This is not about the environment; this is marketing, pure and simple, and it is a shame.